The Los Santos Police Department may be a joke, but the real keepers of the Grand Theft Auto Online realm are in the process of cleaning up the city. If you're a hacker or cheater, that may mean you.

Yesterday publisher Rockstar Games announced it would take down the online game for a 24-hour maintenance period which is still ongoing. An update the Rockstar support page details some of the maintenance being preformed. One big problem as been the “game-breaking amounts of in-game cash” that have been given out by cheaters and Rockstar is planning to punish those responsible.

"As part of today’s maintenance period," it reads, "we are removing the counterfeit GTA$ from the game's economy. Anyone that innocently received GTA$ as a result of these exploits but did not engage in cheating to acquire it will not face any further action - the funds will just be removed, and you'll be able to keep any items you currently own.”

"Those who actively engaged in cheating and exploiting the game in this manner will, however, be subject to in-game penalties at our discretion. This may include being placed in isolated cheater pools or banned from GTA Online altogether."

So the hammer has officially fallen and the fuzz have come to town. Jump on your trackers and lawn mowers and head for the hills, dumping your stacks of cash in the bushes like a bad episode of Cops. It's frightening to think of the kind of players who are going to end up in “cheater pools,” that doesn’t sound like a good time.